Page 69 of Hope Forged
“Like I said.” Oz huffed, sounding like air squeezed from between two gaskets.
“Show me,” she commanded.
“Are you sure?”
“Oz,” she gritted out. Again, agony gripped her skull. She clenched her jaw, enduring it. Then what she saw stole her breath. Yes, this was what taunted her when Illan pressed his palm to hers. “Thank you,” she said, at last getting the answers she hadn’t known the questions to.
She returned to her bed beside the dying fire, her mind filled with intimate images she couldn’t wait to experience with Illan. But more than that, she had power inside her to create a mind- or life-fusion. She stared at her fingertips, imagining the symbol she had to draw on his forehead.
Could she do it wrong? Was that even a possibility? And if so, what would the incorrect mark do? Illan seemed to know what he was talking about. She’d follow his lead.
If it meant she was his dhutya.
That decision allowed her to drift off, only to be awoken a moment later with Seba’s nose in her face. She grumbled and threw her arm around him to pull him down to her side. “Left you some ceaza,” she mumbled when he resisted her tugs.
His disappearing patter woke her.
“Ulta,” she said into her O.D.I. “Did you insert a tracker into Seba?”
“We did, milady.”
“Good,” she whispered, sitting up. “Might as well port me now.”
She appeared on the floor in the common. “Thanks, Ulta.”
Medical was in darkness, with a muted light illuminating Mudya in the med-E.D. Coll must have gone to bed since he wasn’t hovering. The silence of the ship said everyone had, as well. She headed to her room, pausing outside Illan’s closed door.
He’d given her the space she’d asked for.
But it smarted that he hadn’t checked on her. She entered her room, stripping on the way to the cleanser. The hot water wasa welcome change from the lake. As she ran her hands over her body, she considered asking Coll for his advice. He’d be the best male able to guide her with what she needed. She cupped her belly where a baby would grow. What a strange human word? But, she found orgasm just as bizarre. Then again, having never heard the words ‘fael’ or ‘faelin,’ they were as foreign.
“Baby.” Speaking it aloud evoked a deep-seated emotion, a need to hold her child.
Did Illan want children? As much as the Durn nation mattered to him, she had to assume he wanted many. Did he know how they were formed? She left the spray to wrap a toweling robe around her.
She sank onto her bed, staring into space. “Illan?” she whispered into her O.D.I.
“What is it, ohara?” His voice was hoarse with sleep.
She slapped her thigh, being an idiot for disturbing him. “Just making sure you’re well.”
He shuffled, maybe rolling over. “Where are you?”
“On theCeleeri.”
He spoke no more. Maybe he’d drifted off, content with the knowledge that she was safe.
“Struggling to sleep?” he said when her door opened.
She smiled, admiring the way his sleep pants hung low on his hips. His bare feet to his broad shoulders received the same attention. “Thank you for Oz.”
He stopped within a foot of her and tilted her chin up with two fingers until what filled her vision were the dips and hills of his stomach to his chest. “Come, let us find our rest together.”
She clambered onto the bed, then sprawled along the length of the bulkhead.
He joined her, bringing his warmth with him. On his back, he watched her, his brow furrowing. “What has changed?”
“Nothing,” she said. “And everything.”
